


In These Parts

by SylvanWitch



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode: s07e20, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-28
Updated: 2012-04-28
Packaged: 2017-11-04 11:22:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/393253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SylvanWitch/pseuds/SylvanWitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No one is dead for a change.  Episode coda for 7:20.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In These Parts

For a change, no one’s dead…except Bobby, more or less.

But “Charlie” is on her bus and they’re back in their car du jour, and they’ve got Dick Roman’s stolen toy in their trunk, so they’re calling it a win.

Two hundred and twelve miles later, they stop at a diner for dinner. The windows are steamy inside, the air redolent with grease and stale coffee, and for a little while they can pretend no one’s after them.

Sam’s knee bumps Dean’s under the table as he slides in, his apology down to the familiar shorthand of a look, which Dean ignores in favor of burning his tongue on coffee so bitter it might come in handy if they run out of borax.

“Hey,” Dean says, hissing cold air across his tongue and eyeing the waitress. “You don’t think…”

Sam gives him the long-suffering look of someone used to Dean’s attention span. Once the waitress has sashayed past them, he says, “Think what?”

“We should check out the borax plants.”

It takes Sam only seconds to catch on to what Dean’s suggesting. “You really think he’d shut them down?”

“Hell, yeah.”

“He might get away with slowing the production of borax, but even Dick Roman can’t stop the manufacture of that many cleaning products and cosmetics lines without drawing some seriously unwanted attention to himself.”

Dean gives the woman behind the counter a bleary-eyed look. She’s got more makeup showing than actual skin. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

“Still, I wouldn’t buy shares in Mr. Clean…”

Dean lets a huff of air escape him by way of a laugh.

The pie is good and the cold air a comfort after the sweatbox inside, but as always, Dean has to ride out the brief stab of pain at forgetting to remember he’s not going to see his baby waiting for him in the parking lot.

Trying not to hate the unfamiliar car, he gets in and waits for Sam to settle. Not much leg room up front, and his brother’s resigned expression wipes away the very last of the good feeling the diner had given him.

Maybe it’s indigestion.

“Where to?” It’s a tired question Dean’s tired of asking. As much as he’s always loved the road, he’d like to stay in one place long enough to catch their breath, take some time to think. 

“I figure we’ve gotta find someone who knows what that thing in the trunk is.”

“Can’t be anyone on the radar—professors, archaeologists, whatever. The big mouths’ll be watching anyone on the up and up who knows anything about whatever it is.”

“Then we go underground. Gotta be someone between Dad’s contacts and Bobby’s who can figure it out without setting off the Leviathan alarms.”

They pause to wait for Bobby to appear in the back seat, already a habit for them when they mention their dead friend. Nothing.

Sam shrugs. “Drive, I guess. The more miles we put between us and Dick, the better I’ll feel.”

“Yeah,” Dean agrees, pulling out onto the road. By unspoken agreement, they don’t talk about anything serious, digesting their food and their new mission to the cranky tune of the mistimed engine and whatever they can manage to get on the crappy radio.

Eventually, inevitable neon spills across their windshield, breaking the monotony of the night, and not for the first time, Dean has to swallow past the regret that they can’t pull in and park, offer a credit card in a stranger’s name, take a room with bad mattresses and water the temperature of spit. Who knew he’d ever wish for that?

Past the one-motel town, the name of which he doesn’t bother to notice, Dean finds a dirt road, follows it to a weed lot fronting a listing white single-wide. The windows are all broken, the ground in front littered with broken beer bottles and used condoms, but it’s a roof, anyway, and there aren’t any rats that he can hear.

Without discussing it, Sam brings the object inside. They’d ditched its original case in favor of something less obvious, but it still seems out of place on the trailer’s warped linoleum floor.

Sam covers the windows, salts the sills, Dean sets up the camp lanterns and spreads out the bedrolls.

It ain’t much, but it’s what they’ve got: a place to rest, an unknown hope, and each other.


End file.
